


Something Suspicious

by Jld71



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Carnival, Clowns, Gen, Worst nightmare, funhouse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2019-06-15 06:25:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15406989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jld71/pseuds/Jld71
Summary: Sam and Dean investigate a haunting at a carnival. It turns out to be Sam’s worst nightmare.





	Something Suspicious

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Challenge/Prompt: July Word Challenge; SPN Creatures - Faerie_Wish, Fairie_Wish13.  
> Prompts: Clown, Carnival, Funhouse.  
> Art Created By: jdl71/jld71

  
  
  


Something Suspicious

 

Sam hadn’t been to happy to find them rolling up outside a carnival; it sparked something suspicious in his mind as he looked at the tents. He shot Dean a look, one that Dean dubbed his "bitch face". Rolling his eyes, Dean had muttered something about a haunting. As they had entered the carnival, Dean had made the suggestion of splitting up so they could cover more ground. Despite his protests of it being a bad idea, he’d lost the fight as Dean pointed out how big the place was. Now, he regretted giving in to Dean’s idea. He was pretty sure it was Dean’s way of screwing with him. Dean was probably off playing games or eating his weight in fried food. He shook his head, trying to dispel that notion, he looked up and scanned the area he was in. That’s when Sam saw it. His hands instantly felt clammy and his blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he bristled at the sight before him. 

 

A clown. Shit! Why did it have to be a clown? Oh, and let’s not forget the funhouse it was standing in front of. Because, really what’s a creepy ass clown without a funhouse? Fuck my life, Sam thought to himself. He looked around, hoping Dean wasn’t behind him, laughing his ass off. Because, again, fuck my life. He heaved a sigh of relief, Dean was nowhere to be seen. He would have taken comfort in that, if it hadn’t been for the fact that his worst nightmare was standing in front of him. Then he shuddered, because Dean was nowhere to be found. He watched as the clown beckoned to him. Oh, hell no! He felt the tick in his right eye start, like it had back when they had to deal with Plucky Pennywhistle. He swore back then that if he never saw another clown again, it would be too soon. But, now here he was with a clown standing only a few feet away from him, trying to get his attention. Fate really was a cruel bitch. He fought the urge to massage the right side of his face, hoping the tick would stop on its own. He would not call it a nervous tick. He was not nervous, just a little . . . whatever, he huffed to himself.

 

He hunched his shoulders in resignation, he knew that he was about to talk to this clown, if not follow it. His life really did suck. He took a few steps closer to the clown with a look of disgust on his face. He really hoped it didn’t touch him, or throw confetti or glitter on him. He was still living that down. Every now and then he still found glitter in his clothes or duffle bag. He suspected that Dean had something to do with that. 

 

The clown smiled at him; it was creepy - that wide blood red mouth extending past what was considered a normal mouth. In his mind, he knew it was just makeup, but still, creepy. He fought down the desire to draw his gun and empty the clip into the clown standing before him. But, he couldn’t, not with a crowd of people around and he didn’t know if the clown was really evil - okay, all clowns were evil as far as he was concerned. They just weren’t all demon spawn, possessed entities hell bent on tormenting innocent people. It just seemed they were always there to torment him.

 

He watched as the clown produced a balloon from its jacket pocket - him, Sam reminded himself. The clown was obviously male. He had to stop calling the clown an it, because that also conjured up images from Stephen King’s  _ It _ . He felt a full body shudder coming on and tried to stop it. The clown raised the balloon to his lips and blew into it, creating a long, narrow cylindrical shaped balloon. After tying off the end, the clown manipulated it into a dog and offered it to him. Sam’s hands raised of their own accord and he watched as his own shaking hands reached out and accepted the offered balloon animal. He looked at it, dumbfounded, waiting for something to happen. Clearly, it was just an ordinary balloon. It didn’t spring to life in the form of a rabid dog ready to rip his throat out, as he had expected it would.

 

“What . . ?” Sam managed to get out as the clown waved at him.

 

The clown smiled and then turned and started to walk away from him. Sam scrunched his face up in confusion. Just what was this game the clown was playing at? The clown stopped, looked over his shoulder and waited for Sam to follow him. Reluctantly, Sam did, feeling dread rising in the pit of his stomach. This was so not going to end well, he was sure of it. His legs felt heavy as he forced them to move, to follow after the clown who led him to the entrance of a funhouse. He felt his mouth go dry as he looked up at it. He breath caught in his throat and he felt his chest tighten when he actually took note of the funhouse. It wasn’t so much the funhouse itself that caused this reaction; had him cringing and steps away from turning tail and getting the hell out of there, it was the theme of the funhouse - clowns. How had he missed that when he’d first glanced at the funhouse a few minutes ago? So, yeah, fate and all that; his life really sucked at times.

 

He took a step forward as the clown swung the door open, holding it open with an extended arm. He didn’t miss the fact that the door and wall around it were painted to mimic the wide smile of a clown. He fought down the bile threatening its way up his throat. Sam pressed his body against the opposite wall, attempting to stay as far away from the damn clown as possible. He took a deep breath, squared his shoulders and walked past the devil spawn clown and found himself plunged into darkness. He clutched at the balloon animal still in his hands and jumped when the pressure from his hands caused the balloon to break. The popping sound was deafening in the quiet of the funhouse. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he was hit with a strobe light, momentarily knocking him off balance as it blinded him. His arms flailed out at he tried to regain his balance. His hands touched something and he tried to turn to see what it was as he was plunged into darkness again. He just hoped that whatever it was that he’d touched wasn’t a clown.

 

The sound of laughter; maniacle in nature, played over head from hidden speakers, jarring him into movement. He inched along in the darkness, hands outstretched in front of himself for balance and protection. He made it a few feet when the torso of a clown popped out at him from his left. He curled his hands into fists, ready to strike out at it until he realized it was just a harmless prop. A giggle escaped his lips. He refused to call it a hysterical giggle, because well, he wasn’t hysterical in the least. He might not be completely calm right now, but he dismissed the thought of calling the state he was in as hysterical.

 

He shuffled around the prop to get to the next room of the funhouse. He stood at the entrance to the room and groaned as he watched the floor move left to right and then back and forth. He would have to traverse this room to get to the next. With a small prayer to whoever might be listening to him, Chuck or the angels, he stepped out into the room and nearly lost his balance as the tile he landed on shook under his body and jutted forward a foot and then moved left before stopping as he lurched forward. Before the tile could move again, he took another step and landed on a tile that moved backwards before jarring him to the right. He made a few more moves before he got the hang of the pattern in order to get out of the room. Every tile that moved to the right would take him backwards, forcing him to start over again. Consciously, he only stepped on the tiles that moved to the left and he found himself advancing toward the next opening leading him out of the room. 

 

He smiled in satisfaction as he reached the last tile and stepped off of it into a small dark hallway. He was prepared for anything to jump out at him. Or so he thought. He might have elbowed the dancing clown that appeared at his right side. He hadn’t noticed the moving wall or when the partition lifted and the clown crawled out and made his way to stand next to him. He had trouble seeing in the dim light of the hallway and hadn’t really seen the movement until the clown began to dance from side to side, waving white glove clad hands in his face. When his elbow connected with the clown’s jaw, he may have screamed. He didn’t sound like a girl when he screamed. Okay, yes, he will admit to screaming. Who wouldn’t when a clown pops out of what was thought of as a wall at you in a funhouse? He did take comfort in remembering how Dean had screamed when a cat had popped out from a locker. So what if Dean had been stricken with “ghost sickness”? Dean had sounded like a girl, that he was sure of. But, he refused to acknowledge that his scream was anything other than manly sounding. Thank you very much.

 

Sam left the clown, who had backed away from him, rubbing his jaw as he forced himself to the next room of the funhouse. It was a wind tunnel and he smiled when he saw it. It was the last obstacle he had to get past to get to the end of this horror show of a funhouse. He did let himself think back on when he was a child and their father had taken him and Dean to carnival. He remembered how much fun he’d had with Dean, trying to get through that funhouse and the wind tunnel similar to this. The tunnel was circular, the room spinning around and around, making it nearly impossible for a person to stay upright as blasts of wind blew out at you without any pattern to make out. 

 

With a glance over his shoulder, because he had to make sure that damn clown was nowhere near him, he took a deep breath. Seeing that he was alone, thankfully the clown had disappeared, he hoped that the clown had crawled back to where he’d come from, to be swallowed up into oblivion. He turned his attention back to the moving tunnel and took a step forward. The tunnel stopped moving long enough for him to get his feet planted before it began to move. He found himself falling against the moving wall to his right, half sliding down before he found himself pitching to his left. The tunnel’s movements began to speed up, causing him to run in place, or at least that’s how it felt to him. As the tunnel slowed down, he was hit with a few short blasts of air. He lifted his arms to protect himself and tried to move forward as the air subsided. He fell a few more times as the tunnel’s speed increased before he finally made it to the end and stepped out on to the small ramp attached to the exit area. He breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short lived when a clown popped up from a trap door in the platform he’d been standing on.

 

Sam had had enough. Seeing the clown, Sam lunged at him, using his entire body to tackle him, bringing the clown down with him as they struggled against each other. Sam felt the clown’s face smack against his cheek as they grappled with each other, limbs entangled with each other’s limbs. He felt the clown’s hands pushing at his chest and Sam headbutted him, momentarily dazing the clown, allowing him to pull them both up onto their knees. He curled one fist in to the clown’s shirt and the other into a fist, ready to punch the clown. As he drew back to follow through with the blow to the clown’s face he heard a terrified cry.

 

“Mommy, why is that man hurting the clown?”

 

Then reality slammed into him. He was at a carnival, not on a hunt. He took a step back from the clown, taking a few deep breaths to calm himself down. Sam looked up, seeing a terrified little girl clinging to her mother’s hand, tears welling up in her eyes. He dropped his hands and pushed himself back from the clown. He looked around to see several pairs of eyes on him as he stood. He saw the look of shock and anger intermingled on the bystander’s faces. He groaned; he was such an idiot! He leaned down and grabbed the clown who flinched at his touch as he hauled the man back up to his feet. He found himself smoothing down the clown’s rumpled shirt and then his own.

 

Sam raised his hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry,” he murmured to the clown. “It was a misunderstanding,” he said to the little girl before turning on his heel, trying to escape the eyes on him and his own humiliation. He spied Dean a few feet away from him and stalked toward him. 

 

“Dean!” Sam roared at his brother.

 

Dean stood, leaning against a food cart looking at his brother. His mouth was gaping open, indicating his surprise at Sam. He raised his arms, opened them, using his body language as if to ask what the hell Sam was doing. His wide eyes looked his brother over before his mouth turned up into a wide grin.

 

“There was no haunting was there?” Sam demanded as he narrowed his eyes in anger at Dean. He hear a peel of laughter escape Dean’s lips and he fought the urge to beat the shit out of his own brother, onlookers be damned.

 

Dean doubled over at the waist, his hands on his thighs as he fought to breathe from his laughter. “N . . . n . . . no,” Dean finally managed to breath out between gasps for air. “S . . . so . . . sorry.” Dean forced himself up to his full height, wiping away the tears from his eyes. “I just wanted to come to the carnival, play some games and eat some carny food. I knew you wouldn’t wouldn’t come if there were clowns - even though you claim to be over your fear of them. “Dean pointed a finger at Sam. “Which clearly you’re not.” 

 

Sam crossed his arms over his chest and made a noise deep in his throat, but remained otherwise silent as he listened to his brother.

 

Dean knew this explanation was pissing Sam off, he could tell by his body language. He watched as Sam’s hands clenched and unclenched in to fists.

 

Sam’s face was streaked red and white with grease paint from the clown. And yes, he’d been doused with glitter confetti. It was all too much for Dean to look at. “You look like . . .” Dean couldn’t stop the laughter that was bubbling up from his chest. “You look like . . . like you made out with . . .” He had to stop to catch his breath. “with Bozo the Clown.” 

 

“Very funny,” Sam huffed out at Dean. “You’re such and ass. You know that, right?”

 

Dean dissolved into another fit of laughter at the look of pure hate on Sam’s face. 

 

“I hate you,” Sam breathed out before turning and storming off in the direction of the exit. 

 

As Dean watched Sam’s retreating figure disappear into the the crowd of people, he knew Sam was going to make him pay dearly for this little stunt. Well, he hadn’t actually had a hand in what Sam had managed to get himself involved in, he reasoned with himself. Sam had done that all on his own, but seeing Sam like this was well worth any retribution he’d suffer in the future at the hands of his brother.


End file.
